From Gerald (Gerry) Brown, Media Consultant in Hong Kong, the latest buzz on the Digital Broadcasters market in Asia-Pacific, South Asia and the Middle East covering the latest content and hardware moves in HDTV, 3G, IPTV, Mobile TV, terrestrial radio and TV, cable TV, broadband, satellite broadcast and streaming online.

Tuesday, May 23, 2006

[Mobile ESPN Asia Pacific] Launch

This means that we'll be able to view super sports content such as
the upcoming World Cup in Germany via our mobiles. That is if we live
in areas covered by Airtel (India), CSL (Hong Kong), Globe Telecom
(Philippines), Maxis (Malaysia), SingTel Mobile (Singapore), Taiwan
Mobile (Taiwan) and Telkomsel (Indonesia). These companies come
together under what is called the Bridge Mobile Alliance.

The offerings are being branded (packaged) under the Mobile ESPN
label. This is the mobile sports content service to be provided by
ESPN STAR Sports, a joint venture between two of the world’s leading
cable and satellite broadcasters, ESPN Inc. and STAR.

Put in context, digital broadcaster, ESPN STAR Sports transmits the
world’s premier live sports and leading regional sports events to
over 139 million households on ESPN and over 63 million households on
STAR Sports TV networks.

The link between Bridge Mobile and ESPNSTAR TV is through a Singapore
company called, NeuStar Asia Pacific Pte Ltd. They provide the
clearing house for the many telephone call requests from the mobile
users and ensure the requested audio-video is delivered to the hand
set - such as ESPN STAR Sports content and service applications for
English Premier League (EPL), Major League Baseball (MLB) and
National Basketball Association (NBA), amongst others.

Mobile ESPN’s coverage of the 2006 World Cup is the first sports
content to be commercially launched, with more to come in the months
ahead. (Please see attached Annex for more details on full service
offering). The services are delivered through a regional
infrastructure platform provided by Bridge Mobile and NeuStar.

Dr. Patrick Sim, Bridge Mobile Chief Executive Officer is touting the
Mobile ESPN service as the first and largest multi-market rollout of
a regional mobile content service.

Jamie Davis, ESPN STAR Sports Managing Director, said the new project
"is what avid fans expect on our TV channels and on espnstar.com and
creates a pre-eminent third screen in sports."

Jeff Ganek, NeuStar CEO points to the content platform as a good
exposure for his company: "NeuStar is pleased to join this highly
regarded team and we look forward to supporting the expansion of more
content services in the near future.”